Chapter Text
Tim squinted as he stared up at the mobile that spun above him. You would think that being for an infant meant that it would be something sweet or cute – like baby ducks or bears or some other woodland creature. Instead it was some strange monstrosity with different colored and sized shapes.
The floor was covered with a rug that Tim recognized from his childhood bedroom as being from the 17th century orient and had earned his parents’ months long ire after staining with a science project when he was ten. There were two large paintings on the wall that were easily in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, one he vaguely remembered as being from some famous impressionists. An ornately carved and delicate looking rocking chair was in one corner and just adjacent to it was a shelf full of antique toys and porcelain dolls; all things that probably cost more than most people’s cars. There was even one of the original teddy bears from the Ideal Toy Company, made in the early 1900s to honor Theodore Roosevelt. Of course, these toys were not for playing with – only for looking.
Which made absolutely no sense to Tim, filling a toddler’s nursery full of breakable things, but he could already hear his mother’s cold rebuttal in his head (it’s about the aesthetic, Timothy, honestly). Still, it seemed rather foolish to him as Tim knew from his own experiences that toddlers were basically just drunk little adults – constantly sticky or wet for one reason or another – and always one misstep from death. Because you see, Tim wasn’t always a two-year-old. In fact, he had no idea how the hell he come back here in the first place. The last Tim knew, he’d been a thirty-something man and had been enjoying his early retirement on a lovely private island he’d bought in the Bahamas. It was a retirement that had been a long time coming, one that he had earned. What hadn’t been burnt out of him from starting his CEO career (of both Wayne Enterprises, Drake Industries and all their incorporated affiliates and subsidiaries™) as a teenager, most definitely had been by being a vigilante throughout his youth (and later, a somewhat/maybe/perhaps blink and you miss it/occasional Rogue).
The business side of things had calmed down once he’d given WE to Damian, but that had still had to wait until Tim had been twenty-five and Damian eighteen respectively. It had been a long time coming, but it had been the right move to wait to release control to Damian when he’d come of age instead of at the kid’s proposed sixteen. It taken just that long for Tim to find someone he trusted to run DI for him. When Tim wanted to be done with the corporate world, he wanted to be done, thank you very much. He can’t really recall what had sent him here, though Tim rather thought it had something to do with his death. He thought there may have been a meta involved, he knew there was a storm. A great big one, with rippling purple clouds that had rolled across the afternoon sky like judgment day coming. He had watched it surround his little island from his dragon shaped pool floaty and he remembered just enough to know he'd begun to paddle to shore in alarm. He knew that had happened, he could even remember the limited edition Superboy bathing suit he'd been wearing. In fact, he often dreamed of the storm.
But other than that – nothing, nada, nichts. Tim wasn’t even sure how long he’d been back. He had come into awareness of himself and his bizarre predicament about a month ago, but some part of him wondered if he’d not been back longer, if he’d not been sent right back to the beginning and he’d only come to be aware now because his brain had developed enough to comprehend it. Tim sucked lazily on his pacifier, eyes heavy as he watched the slowly spinning mobile, and thought about the eldritch horror that was his current existence.
There was a roar of laughter below that startled him, making his small body jerk from the half-asleep state with a disgruntled sound. A glance at the clock revealed a set of blurry numbers, but Tim was fairly sure it was well after one in the morning; that meant Mother and Father and their guests would be well and truly drunk, and distracted enough to not notice much other than what was happening downstairs. Nodding Tim pushed himself up, grunting with the effort. His body was tiny - which in theory should make it easier to control, yet somehow was still so unwieldy, which was frustrating. Common thought was that you didn’t put a toddler in a child bed until three or four, but Jack and Janet Drake refused to subscribe to any such nonsense (god forbid their child be typical or worse; common) so Tim was already in one, just as he was already potty trained. Now, easy disregard for his baby-self’s health and safety aside, this actually worked in Tim’s favor. He carefully maneuvered himself down the drop from the bed to floor, legs wobbling somewhat before stabilizing.
Tim glanced around his nursery, eyes weary as he took in the dark room. There wasn’t a nightlight to be found, just whatever creeped in from under the door crack from the hallway. It cast just enough light to make the shadows in his room seem larger and somewhat ominous. Tim eyed the trio of floating shelves that held a handful of life sized French and Italian porcelain dolls.
And look, Tim knew intellectually that the dolls were just old, with their painted and cracked faces and glinting glass eyes, but he was also two, and that shit was creepy. He kept his eye on the weirdest doll (it was even bigger then Tim, with a bright red smile that revealed inlaid ivory teeth, shiny brown eyes that stood out sharply against the paper white of its skin and always seemed to be following him, eyebrows brushed on in sharp lines of dark paint, and a mop of curly black hair kept under a lacy bonnet) as his hand blindly searched behind him. It hit fur and he yanked his stuffed bear closer, clutching it to his side.
Even after all his years, Tim still remembered this bear. It had brown fur and black button eyes, fur so soft to the touch that Tim used to get lost in stroking it. It had come with several outfits – a solider, a sailor, a fireman, even a little business suit – and it had been Tim’s best friend until he’d been three years old and his mother had thrown it away for being too childish. There was no way in hell that Tim was letting Teddy go down like that this time. He already had contingencies that had contingencies in place. As nonsensical as it was, Tim did feel better with Teddy next to him, and he kept the bear clutched to his side, eyes facing the dolls to cover his six as he shuffled his way out of the room.
You know, just in case.
It was fair to say that while Tim’s future self was still in control of his body, it was not completely free from being influenced by his current age. Oh well, que sera, sera, and all that. Besides, no amount of toddler sensibilities was going to keep him from his goals. Tim had very rarely let anything do so as an adult and that certainly wasn’t going to change simply because he was practically an infant now. He made his way across the bright hallway, keeping a weather eye on his nanny’s suite as he did so, but the door remained firmly shut.
Tim tiptoed his way to his parents’ room, a careful maneuvering of throwing Teddy until the neckerchief on it's sailor’s outfit caught on the door knob and then twisting him to and fro, eventually got the door open. He slipped inside, careful to push the door shut behind him. His parents’ room smelled heavily of his mother’s perfume, a discarded dress still left spread out on the Alaskan king, with a empty wine bottle lying on its side at the foot of the bed. Tim’s goal was tucked far on the other side of the room though, where a nook revealed a 18th century German writing desk. The stacking of shoe boxes gave Tim the leg up he needed to get into the wingback chair and another few minutes got him standing with enough support to reach his father’s laptop.
He wasted a few moments trying to guess the password, growing more and more frustrated when each guess proved wrong. He tried his father’s birth date, his mother’s (a long shot, for sure, but the two had to have liked each other at some point, right? They got married after all), the founding of Drake Industries, and a handful of others, but to no success. Tim let out a huff of displeasure, letting his tired legs give out so he could plop down next to Teddy. He needed to get on his father’s laptop in order to get his plans started. When he first realized what had happened, Tim had been struck with indecision. There were so many things he could do and Tim had so much time to do them now. There were dozens of things that Tim could change to make his life and that of his family’s – particularly his brothers’ – better. But had Tim wanted to? That question had left him in a quandary for quite a while. Tim had a bit of a rough time with his family over the last few decades. Really, since Jason reappeared.
A part of Tim never quite got over Jason slitting his throat and nearly beating him to death at the Tower, nor had he really ever forgiven Bruce and Dick for the way they’d just sort of…glossed over it all. Tim got it – he really did. Very little about Jason Todd had to do with Jason Todd. Which was actually pretty unfair to poor Jason when you thought about it.
Sure, Jason had an understandable chip on his shoulder. Being killed the way he was and being resurrected, then being found by Talia – well, that would mess anyone up. And Jason was always going to hate Robin on principle, because Robin was his and it was taken from him, and Jason was a deeply, deeply possessive man. Tim understood and respected that; Tim was just as deeply possessive, he’d just hadn’t had the balls to fight for it like Jason had when he’d been a teenager. Jason had grown up in an environment where death thorough physical abuse or neglect, or just a random incident on the street, was a very real thing.
He’d had to fight for everything he’d ever had – from food to clothes to love and affection. Now Tim’s parents were undoubtedly neglectful and certainly verbally abusive, but he’d never had his life on the line like that. Tim had to beg for every scrap of attention he’d ever wanted to experience as a child, but he’d never been bereft of his basic needs. It was probably why Jason had grown into a violent, tightfisted ass while Tim had gone the more obsessive, covetous route. Jason had serious issues with Bruce up until the day that Tim had passed, and given that both men had the emotional intelligence of a rock, that probably hadn’t changed after Tim had died. The disfranchised men had truly loved each other though and Jason had loved his brothers. There had even been a rough sort of affection between him and Tim at the end. Tim had always trusted Jason to have his back in the field if nothing else.
But again, very little with dealing with Jason Todd was about Jason Todd. Jason was the one that both Bruce and Dick failed. Even if some of the blame for what happened to Jason did lay with Bruce (with his impossible moral standards and snap judgements) and Dick (who had admittedly taken the road of ignoring Jason completely out of anger at Bruce for giving Jason Robin), it had been Jason's - and Jason alone - decisions that got him killed. Yet Dick and Bruce acted like they’d shipped the kid off to Ethiopia themselves. Again, not super fair to Jason. There was a strange kind of dignity that came with being respected enough to be held accountable to for your own mistakes.
But Tim wasn’t surprised by Bruce and Dick’s attitudes. The Wayne family was practically powered by guilt and unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Especially for Dick, who took after Bruce the most in all the best and worst ways.
Which was just – a whole lot to unpack there. If Tim had held on to some resentment for Jason and his actions, there was an entire section of his soul he kept repressed for Dick, that harbored bitter, bitter feelings from the time Bruce disappeared. It was arguably the worst time period in Tim’s life; Kon was dead, Bart was dead, his parents – shit that they were – were dead, his girlfriend faked her death (not that Steph had even bothered letting Tim know that, because he wasn’t even worth – yeah, no, nope. Killing that there, he didn’t have time to go down that rabbit hole again), and the closest thing Tim had ever had to a real father figured died.
Between telling Alfred he was thinking of sending Tim to Arkham (and like, what even? Not even a therapist first? No talk of medication? Not even an inpatient facility? Just straight to Arkahm, Dick you over dramatic son-of-a-bitch) and discrediting him to the superhero community at a large, and giving Robin to Damian who had just tried to kill him, Jesus Christ, Dick what the actual shit.
Hell, Tim had been chiller with Damian at towards the end than anyone else, Dick included. Not that Dick didn't try, which had been appreciated. But Tim was a Drake; he may forgive, but it would be a snowy day in hell before he ever forgot. His odd friendship with Damian had been something he’d never seen coming, but to be honest the two of them were more alike them either wanted to admit. It was probably why they clashed so bad in the beginning; just two endlessly circling Tom cats, furious at each other's existence. Despite the fact that Talia was a de facto princess of a world-wide, well established and feared assassin cult, and Janet was a socialite, the two women were practically cut from the same cloth.
Neither Tim nor Damian had been chosen by Bruce, but rather forced their way into the family and into molds that had just never quite fit right. Both of them had been raised by exacting and cold women who had an image in their mind of just what their sons were to be, an impossible standard that had been dreamed up before either one of them had been even eggs in the womb. Both Damian and himself were inheritors of a great family legacy, one that took precedence over anything else, including personal preferences and wants and needs. And, well, nothing bonded you together quite like mommy issues. And daddy issues because – hello, Bruce Wayne. And you know what? Damian had the class to apologize, which was something that neither Dick or Jason had ever done.
Sure, it was a half-assed apology more action than words, but that wasn’t the point. It wasn’t like Tim was expecting some sort of miracle, the boy had been raised by Talia Al’Ghul and Bruce Wayne for god’s sake. As for his sisters…with the exception of Steph (who Tim had never been able to trust fully again) he’d never really had any issues with Barbara or Cass.
And the less said about his relationship with Bruce, the better. That…just hurt too much to even touch. Tim loved and despised the man in equal amounts. No one had ever made him feel so safe, so worthy, so wanted, as Bruce Wayne. And no one – no one – had ever made him feel quite so disposable. They’d reach a certain amount of peace towards the end of his time at WE, but they’d never regained the easy comfortableness between them that they’d once had before Jason had reappeared. A part of Tim would never forgive Bruce from not protecting him from his sons – from any of them; Jason, Damian, Dick.
But in the end, even with all the bitter feelings, they were Tim’s family. The one he’d chosen and bled for, for better or worse, and well…that was that. Besides, being as far back as he was meant that Tim could just, you know, make a few adjustments to the things he didn’t like. One of the most sensible things Janet had ever said to him was an inch of prevention was worth a pound of cure. So: what did Tim want from this second chance? He wanted to feel important to Bruce. He wanted to be Dick's favorite. He wanted Jason (his childhood hero) to think he was cool. He wanted Damian to need him.
And really, was a little bit of manipulation between family really all that bad? Especially when it was with a clan like the Waynes. It was practically saving them from themselves! And if that meant that Tim got to benefit just a little bit more than most - well, that was just the cost of doing business. Tim was doing all the hard work, after all, and it’s not like they’d ever know any different.
Tim tisked as his latest attempt failed. He itched at his chin, before his eyes narrowed in thought. “No,” he mumbled, “Teddy, he can’t be that basic.”
He hesitated before typing in ‘God’ and hitting enter.
“Oh my god,” Tim groaned as the computer unlocked, “what a narcissist.”
A half hour later and Tim had four slush accounts set up, which would slowly siphon money off from DI until it reached the numbers he wanted. One was just for himself for any unexpected expenses that may pop up, but the other three were for funding hits. Bruce’s no kill policy had slowly but surely been discarded by his children as they aged. It may be a moral foundation that Batman couldn’t ever shake (though Tim was still debating with himself if that was something he wanted to try and influence or not) but the world was a cruel place and it only got crueler.
The Joker had been taken out of commission by Dick for a second time when Tim had been about twenty-three, after he’d killed Dick’s pregnant girlfriend and unborn child. It shouldn’t have taken something so extreme, not after he’d already killed Jason, and not after the hundreds that had been maimed or murdered in between that act and the death of Dick’s family. Bruce’s moral high ground wasn’t something that Tim was willing to indulge in a second time around.
You could still treat killing as the absolute last resort and take out the trash. The police force did it every day.
One fund was for the Joker, another for Two-Face (this was the priority, given Dick was soon to become Robin and the man had nearly killed him), and one for Black Mask. Tim would do it himself but again, he was two. Luckily, a young Slade Wilson was making waves as Deathstroke and given how new he was to the game, Tim thought he’d actually be able to get him at some reasonable prices. It would take a bit to get the money saved up, a year (maybe more, maybe less) for Two-Face, another six months or so for Black Mask and at least three years for the Joker, but it was a worthy investment.
Of course, Bruce could never know. He would never know. After all who would even think Tim involved? He was a toddler. No, this was a nice, efficient, easy answer. Wilson would hardly bat an eye at a few Rogue requests as long as he got paid and it took out three of the most immediate threats to his family. Bruce got to keep feeling like he was living up to his ethical maxims, Dick, Jason, and Steph weren't killed and/or traumatized, and Tim had (technically) clean hands. Then, just for shits and giggles, he signed his father up for every golfing magazine and e-zine available. Jack hated golf, a hatred that had been fanned by how often he had to do so with the DI board members.
Work done, Tim locked the computer and carefully made his way off the chair. He let out an ‘oof’ as he hit the ground, legs half asleep and weak from standing so long. He let himself sit for a minute, Teddy resting by his side, before he made the long trek back to his room. He kind of had to use the bathroom and he was still working on getting his coordination perfected enough not to pee all over the toilet seat.
His second year of life passed fairly unremarkable and without issue. Well, that was if you discarded the looming horror and trauma that came from reliving your earliest memories with abusive parents with a fresh understanding of just how shit said parents actually were. As Tim had grown he’d come to understand just how neglectful Jack and Janet really were, but seeing it first hand was a fresh new type of hell.
He spent the majority of his year lightheaded from the constant judgment he experienced by observing his parents. They were home more than any other time in his life, yet Tim could count on two hands the amount of time he actually saw them outside of dinner. It was like Tim was a living party favor, trotted out to be ‘oohed’ and ‘awed’ at when needed, then trotted back up to the isolation of his nursery while his nanny dicked off to wherever she went. Where was Jason with an edgy but weirdly appropriate The Great Gatsby quote when you needed him? The only thing the Drakes were missing was a dock overlooking a stretch of desolate water with a green light on the other end. Dinner was hardly any better. They managed to have a family dinner at least once a week, if even that, and they were honestly the least favorite part of Tim’s week.
He was always dressed like he was going to a business meeting, in pressed khakis or trousers, a button up and tie. A tie! Not even a clip on, but a full tie that was more often than not tied in an Eldridge knot of all the godforsaken things. An Eldridge! Just when he thought Janet and Jack couldn’t possibly be any more pretentious. Tim voiced his displeasure by dumping as much of his food onto his parents (and eventually the floor when he’d disgusted them enough to earn him a permanent spot tucked away in a corner and away from the 'good rugs'), taking advantage of his tender age to get away with more than would normally be allowed.
Oh, his parents still voiced their displeasure at him in long, long winded rants about decorum and manners, to which Tim did his level best to just stare at them in blank confusion. This eventually morphed into them just grumbling at what a disagreeable child he was, which honestly – fuck them.
Just for that, Tim penciled in a time to escape his nanny each day and drag a chair up to all four thermostats in the Drake Manor and cranking the temperature in whatever direction was appropriate, bypassing his father’s stern sixty-eight degrees law. So far it had caused no less than eight blow out fights between his father and mother, including one that ended up with the rather dramatic death of a 15th century Ming vase that Janet had thrown with startling accuracy at his father, and the firing of one nanny.
Nannies were a revolving door as it was. Janet loved to fire them, it seemed like she got some sick pleasure out of it. Tim half thought she did it to assert her authority or some such nonsense, but in all honesty it didn’t take much for either one of his parents to decide it was time to part ways with the ‘help.’ Tim had done his own part once, with a particular bitch of a woman named Tracey. She had a tendency to yank Tim around by his arm when he didn’t move quick enough. He’d made sure he’d waited until Janet had been shuffling into the kitchen, bleary eyed and hung over after one of their dinner parties (where Tim had played the part of darling, perfect Drake heir to a T, earning his mother a shower of praises for her maternal instincts and prowess) and glued himself to the nanny’s leg, looked up to her with the biggest, sweetest, gooiest eyes he could manage and lovingly called her ‘mommy.’
Tracey was gone before the coffee had finished percolating.
Was it petty? Oh absolutely, but it wasn’t like Tim had a whole lot of control in his life. He had to fight back how he could. He couldn’t solve things the way he normally did, with corporate sabotage or blackmail, or a visit from the shadows of the night to expose (or frame, depending on what was required) a rival from your local Red Robin. Tim would take what he could get.
Overall, his second year passed in interminable tedium and boredom. He got his little revenges in where he could though, which gave him short lived but amusing moments of superiority, but for the most part it was just indomitable swathes of monotony. Tonight was one such night; Tim was so bored he was on the verge of doing something stupid just to shake things up. His parents were damned and determined to wean him off his pacifiers (jokes on them, Tim had at least five squirreled away up in his room) and Tim’s lips ached with the urge to suck. His mouth literally tingled, it itched, his tongue curling and uncurling desolately in his mouth. It was the worst addiction of his entire life; it even surpassed the time when Tim had tried to give up coffee in his twenties.
He kept catching his thumb gravitating to his mouth, only for his mother to inerrably catch his eye from wherever she was lurking about and give him a death stare. In short, Tim was irritated. He’d already flushed his bow tie in one of the downstairs powder rooms out of pure spite (to which Oliver Queen, in all his inebriated – and possibly pre-Green Arrow state, it was hard to tell with Queen; he wore his persona even more tightly then Brucie Wayne – glory had caught him, laughing loudly and saluting him with his wine glass and a cheery ‘I feel ya, little man!’) and was just eyeing the oh so preciously stacked champagne fountain with weighted interest, when a familiar voice thoroughly stole his attention.
Tim’s head snapped to follow it, mouth dropping at the sight of Bruce Wayne. His back was to Tim, but he would have recognized that broad form anywhere. Complicated feelings aside, Tim found himself drawn to the man like a magnet to a pole.
“ – just really took that time to find myself, you know? Have you been to the Middle East?” Bruce was saying, sounding every inch the spoiled livelaughlove travel groupie he was supposed to be, “oh man, Lillian, you’ve got to go. The history there, you can just feel it, it’s like seeped in the – woah.” Tim blamed his immaturely developed impulse control for the way he wrapped his arms around Bruce’s leg. The man tensed at the unexpected grab, and while the cut of his trousers did well in hiding the firm muscle there it could hide nothing from touch. “Well, hello.”
And there was just enough of the real Bruce (of Tim’s Bruce) in that tone that to Tim’s eternal horror, he heard himself give a wet sniffle, face pressed against Bruce’s thigh. Lacking father figure or not, Tim missed him.
“Oh my,” a woman simpered, “is that Timothy Drake?”
A seemingly giant hand rested atop his head, the touch gentle. “Something wrong, chum?”
Tim just shook his head stubbornly, fingers tightening on the smooth wool. There was a low chuckle. “Excuse me, Lillian, I think I should probably get this little guy back to his folks.”
“Of course,” the female voice agreed, her voice just above a coo, “it’s so late, he must be exhausted! I think I saw Janet in the billiard room.”
And then big hands were lifting him up and Tim squeaked as he was suddenly on a hip, legs curling instinctively around Bruce’s middle as his hands gripped at a starched tux collar. Blue eyes twinkled at him and oh, oh, Bruce was young. Younger than Tim had ever seen him. “Tim, right? I’m Bruce, let’s see if we can find your mom.”
Tim nodded dumbly, unable to look away from Bruce’s face. It was completely unlined save for small little laugh lines that came when he smiled, free even of that one scar on the bridge of nose that he’d had the entirety of the time Tim had known him. He looked young and free and unweighted. He was a baby, Tim realized, eyes wide. How old was he here? Twenty-five? Twenty-six? Tim had been older by over almost a decade and a half when he died. Was he even Batman yet? If he was, he must just be starting out.
A literal baby.
The shock of it had him laying his head limply on Bruce’s shoulder, thumb popped in his mouth before he could even recognize the reflex. A hand rested on his back, firm and strong, and Tim let his eyes flutter shut. He’d never been held like this, not by Bruce. He’d been too big when he’d become Robin and Bruce too hurt and guarded for anything like this. Even the hugs they had partaken in had been quick, usually from the side. This was…
Had Tim ever really been held like this? Had anyone ever done so? Certainly not his parents; Mother was a light pat on the shoulder kind of woman, while Father had always been a firm hand shake type of man. Tim all but melted into the hold, letting out a soft sigh of contentment. Bruce’s cologne was familiar yet still somehow different; a deep woodsy smell with an insert of something almost rich like vanilla, and lacked that smokey effect it'd once had. It felt like he was floating in place, kept safe from the world by the strength of Bruce’s hold, and the warmth that the man was emitting almost had him drifting off.
“Timothy!”
The sound of his mother’s voice was like a shock of adrenaline and Tim went stiff. Bruce’s reaction was instant if not subtle; the weight on his back increased slightly, pressing down for a moment before lessening. “Hey, Janet.” Bruce greeted, voice good-natured and amused. “I found this poor guy all tuckered out.”
“Oh my goodness, Bruce, I can’t thank you enough.” Janet fussed, “I could just fire that nanny, I told her to take him up to bed at eight.”
Which was a blatant lie if Tim had ever heard one, given that his nanny was currently drunk and off with one of Hadger boys and had been since dinner at six, and Janet hadn't even poked her head out of her room until nine. It was only the years he'd spent honing control over his willpower that kept him from shamelessly clinging to Bruce. Mother rested him on her hip, the hold awkward for both of them. Tim didn’t even think it was possible to hold a child so instinctively wrong, yet Janet was somehow managing it. He wanted to shift his weight to feel less like she was about to drop him or to keep her hip from digging into his crotch, but knew better to wriggle. Janet’s hands were already tight around his waist, the forefinger of her left hand tapping against his back.
It was tell he’d long learned to be weary of.
“For heaven’s sake, Timothy,” she hissed as she started off in a voice that would have been a whisper about five Maker’s Marks ago, but as it is was just below normal speaking volume, “get your thumb out of your mouth, are you a baby? And what have you done with your tie? Why are we even paying Sheila?”
Whelp, there was another gone. Technically, Tim's fault but also kind of not? True, Tim did abandon said nanny as soon as the guests arrived and preceded to avoid her with every inch of skill he had perfected from years as a vigilante, and had thus freed up her night exponentially. But she always smelled like sweat so that was hardly on Tim. And also, he was pretty sure it was Shelly, not Sheila.
From over her shoulder, Tim could just see the way that Bruce’s brows rose a minuscule amount (which for him, was pure judgment) but then Jack was laughing far too loudly, throwing an arm over Bruce’s shoulders as he thanked him for ‘being my son’s savior and oh, by the way, did you see the lasts numbers in the JPX?’ and Janet was sweeping him away.
What followed was one of the roughest changes of his entire life, with Janet putting him in a summer pajama set as if it wasn’t early spring and there was still snow on the ground. And if Tim had found himself crying silently into Teddy that night, sucking morosely on a prohibited pacifier and missing the manor so completely it was a furious ache? Well, that was no one’s business other than his own. His parents certainly didn’t notice.
The behavior at the party may have been a mistake, given that his parents struck back. That wasn’t a new thing in Tim’s life in general, but it was this time around. This was early. From memory, Jack and Janet has been content to just ignore him most of the time. He’d rather cheerfully assumed that would continue to be the case until he was a gala-approved age (here meaning four, which was just as absurd as it sounded) and yet he’d woken one bright Monday morning nearly a month after said party, to an empty house save for the latest nanny model, Cynthia, and to disaster.
Teddy was nowhere to be found.
Tim raged, already knowing who the culprits were and that they were currently on a plane to Tanzania and therefore outside of his reach, something which infuriated him to his tiny bones. He thoroughly destroyed his room (well, as thoroughly as you could when you were hardly two feet tall and still somewhat unstable on your feet), flipping his mattress and pulling it completely free of the frame. By the time Cynthia had been drawn to the commotion, Tim had managed to kill that damn terror doll with a well-aimed, fury enhanced throw of a model car, sending it crashing to its death.
“Timothy!” The young woman shrieked, hand flying to her chest in shock. “What on earth has gotten into you?”
“Give me Teddy.”
“All of this over a toy?”
Tim’s fists curled by his side and he funneled every inch of Janet Drake into his voice that he could. “Give me Teddy, now.”
“You’re parents have decided your too old for a stuffy Timothy, you have to respect that.” Cynthia said with a tisk. Tim stared at the woman. What kind of woman – what kind of human being – took a teddy bear from a baby? “Don’t look at me like that, Timothy, your teddy has already been thrown away. You can’t have it now even if your parents did let me go get it, it’s dirty."
Dirty?
His bear?
Tim let out a squeak bellow of rage. “You bitch!”
Cynthia gaped at him before her pretty (but not too pretty, Mother never hired the truly pretty ones) face hardened. “That’s it; you’re going to time out.”
Tim screamed as she started towards him, making a valiant attempt to escape her grasp. He dodged the hands, getting to the hallway before he was caught by the arm. He swung with the grip, ignoring how it made the pretty tame hold into something’s worse that made his shoulder ache, and kicked hard. Cynthia let out a curse as the kicks landed on her hip and thigh, and suddenly Tim was being held aloft and far from her.
“You are behaving terribly.” Cynthia said sternly, “your parents will be receiving an email about this. They’re going to be so disappointed.” She yanked open a nearby room, tossing him across the distance from the doorway to the bed. Incompetent asshole, Tim seethed as he bounced across the mattress, did she have any idea how lucky she was she’d managed to get him on the bed? And okay yeah, the bed was right next to the door but Tim was small, a throw like that could have broken something! “You stay in there until you cool off and can apologize.”
The door slammed shut, locking ominously. The Drake Manor had original doors, as Jack loved to point out, with the old locks that came with a fancy matching key that rested in the lock. Tim didn’t even bother to try the door to see if it was really locked or not. Today was Monday – it was trash day – Tim didn’t have time to bother with doors! And it wasn’t just about his teddy bear.
Tim wasn’t really two-years-old, he knew Teddy was a stupid comfort toy, something he’d at some point out grow and probably forget about in a closet as he aged. It didn’t matter if Dick still had his stuffed elephant in Bludhaven or Jason’s Pooh Bear had a place of honor in his room back at the manor. Tim didn’t need Teddy, he wasn’t a child.
It was the principle of the thing.
Teddy was Tim’s. It belonged to him, it was his, his only friend, and the only person who had a say in when and how it was disposed of was Tim. He hadn’t had the chance to defend Teddy in his first life, but in this one he was a thirty-eight year old man and no one – no one – was ever going to take anything from him again unless he let them, and then he wouldn’t want it anyway, because if he let them have it, it meant it was already trash. He let out a snarl as he fished out a pair of his mother’s bobby pins from the duck shaped pocket on the front of his overalls.
Cynthia was fucking gone.
Tim was going to see that bitch so fired.
It took longer than he’d like to jimmy the lock, but still easier than it would had been if the lock hadn’t been circa 1890s. He crept out, not bothering with shutting the door behind him. He could see that Cynthia was busy in his room, probably cleaning up the mess Tim had left behind. He stole down the hallway and the front stairs, bypassing the front door and its stupidly high door knobs and going for the oversized lever one on the kitchen doorway. He quietly pulled the door open and gentled it shut, before turning on his socked feet and tearing down the marble driveway as quickly as he could. Tim had never been grateful that his parents had a heated driveway before (he’d never thought about it, really) but he was now. The frost that iced the well-kept lawn and topiary bushes was completely absent from the drive, which was good because while Tim’s socks had no-slip grippies on them, he didn’t really want to test them.
He was winded before he even made it halfway, so begrudgingly Tim made the last half at a gasping stumble. The gates to Drake Manor were – like everything else – original, and had gaps easy enough for him to slip through. The sight of the brown trash cans were enough to given him a sudden second wind and Tim charged the closest one. Disappointingly it didn’t topple, nor did it rock. Tim let out a curse, glaring up at it. Given there was only Tim and the nanny, they hadn’t really generated more than two cans of trash, which was a blessing itself because the height of gala season saw them easily with twelve or more out. But that did little to help him now if he couldn’t knock the damn thing over.
Tim circled the indomitable thing as he planned, hands on hips. He could try jumping up to grab the handle, but he doubted he could reach and even if he did manage to grab it, Tim highly doubted his weight would actually be enough to pull it down. Finally fifteen minutes later, four bricks liberated from a garden bed border, a thorough application of basic machines and geometry, and Tim had the first trash can down. He descended upon the bags with fervor, tearing them open and digging shamelessly. Alas, it wasn’t to be and the first can was utterly empty of his toy. Tim seethed to himself, sucking his pacifier furiously (he always kept one or two in his pockets for emergency stress relief when his parents weren't home) as he set up the bricks around the wheels of the second trash can. If Teddy wasn’t in there at all, he and Cynthia were going to have words.
He was hallway through the second can, using a broken piece of a wine bottle as an impromptu knife so he didn’t have to keep using his (admittedly meager) grip strength to get the bags open, when a started “Good lord” caught him off guard. Tim glanced up, the rhythmic sucking of his pacifier coming to a still at the sight of a black Rolls Royce idling at the side road that lead to Wayne Manor. Alfred was staring at him from the over the car top, aghast. “Master Bruce, it’s not a raccoon.”
From the back seat, Bruce Wayne stared at him. Tim stared back. Slowly, the Gotham Times was neatly refolded and set aside. The door opened and Bruce stepped out, tie loose around his neck and blazer missing. The man’s mouth opened, before shutting soundlessly. He crossed the distance between them and crouched down, eyes flittering from the piles of trash around them, the fallen trash can Tim was waist deep in, and then to the piece of glass in his hand.
“Hey Tim.” Bruce said slowly, “do you remember me? I’m Bruce Wayne, I’m a friend of your parents.” Tim nodded. “Can I have that?” He asked, gesturing to the glass shard.
Tim shook his head, using the improvised knife to cut open another bag. When he was done, he gestured toward Bruce with it. See? It was a tool, he needed it. But Bruce was already moving, snatching the glass in one fluid, quick motion. Tim stared at his now empty hand in shocked betrayal, before scuttling back into the shadows of the trash can.
Bruce’s brows furrowed even as his lips twitched up at the edges, tossing the glass into the piles of trash. “You want to tell me why you’re in the trash, chum?” Tim glared fiercely at him. “I see. Must be pretty serious then.”
Tim nodded in agreement, keeping a weary eye on his former father figure as he ripped open the new bag. He sorted through the trash at a snail’s pace, his previous efficiency all but lost as he needed to maintain the protection the trash can afforded him. Alfred was on the other side of the car now, his camelhair chauffeur’s coat draped over one arm, looking a mix between utterly exasperated and dismayed.
“Master Bruce,” the butler began, but Bruce just held up a hand, silencing him. Tim watched the interplay with a halfhearted interest. He knew that seeing a toddler wading through trash was probably violating Alfred’s – like – ethos or something, but Bruce stayed where he was, crouched and just watching, head cocked to the side.
Tim gave the man a nod of approval and then began digging again. He didn’t know why Bruce seemed content to let him fulfill his task, but then again Bruce had always been a little odd about some things. Curiosity was really Bruce’s Achilles heel; maybe he just wanted to see what would happen. In the end, Teddy wasn’t even in a bag. Tim was in the process of trying to drag another bag out when his foot hit something soft and squishy, and the toddler swung around, making a crow of victory as the dirtied brown fur of Teddy came into sight.
The second he’d turned his back on Bruce, the man struck. He barely had time to grab Teddy’s foot before he was being yanked free so suddenly he almost dropped his pacifier. He managed to save it at the last moment, shoving it back in his mouth regardless of his grubby hand or the way Alfred made a half-lurch in his direction. Tim let out a satisfied grunt, holding Teddy out to see.
“I see, did you lose your bear?” Bruce asked, maneuvering Tim carefully as he wrapped Alfred’s coat around him.
That was nice, he didn’t realize how cold he’d become. That was a bad habit Tim had his whole life; he just got so mission oriented, Steph used to say he had ‘blinders’ on. She insisted for the entirety of their relationship that Tim had agreed to their first date and then promptly forgot about it, because Steph had made the mistake of asking him out while he was going over case files. Tim let his weight rest more firmly on the arm supporting him, enjoying the near instant warmth the coat provided. He reached up for his pacifier again but before his fingers could grace it, Alfred had plucked it from his mouth. The butler’s eyebrow was twitching as he efficiently (yet with an air of quiet, dignified horror) began to wipe it off with his handkerchief.
“It’s trash day.” Tim announced, eyeing the way that Alfred had zeroed in on his toy with the same intense focus he used to get when he found a particularly upsetting stain, and deliberately pulled the bear closer to himself.
“It is,” Bruce agreed with a hum, “you speak very well, Tim. How old are you?”
“Two.” Tim did speak very well for a two-year-old, thank you very much, but given he was actually closer to forty than not, he had hoped there would have been less of a lisp to it. But he had been pretty verbose and advanced at this age from what he’d been told, and he had been considered a bit of a child prodigy by the time he was ten, so Tim didn’t think it hurt anything to get that ball rolling a little earlier. “Nanny threw him out. She threw me too.”
Which was a bit of an exaggeration, but seriously – fuck Cynthia.
Against him, Bruce went completely still. Tim frowned when a closer inspection of Teddy showed that his arm had a rip at the shoulder and Tim let out an irritated sound, carefully poking around the loosened seam.
“Tim, how did nanny throw you?” Bruce asked in what was most definitely his victim voice. Tim would know after nearly four years as the man’s partner and another ten or more working alongside him.
“Grabbed my arm and stuff. Locked me in a room.” Tim gave Bruce a toothy grin. “I got out.”
Bruce hummed, a hand running up and down his back. “Is your mom or dad home, Tim?”
He shook his head, holding a (coffee ground? A quick sniff confirmed it) coffee ground covered hand out to Alfred. “Pacy, please.”
The greying man ignored him, holding his gaze as innocent and clueless as the dawn of a new day, as if he hadn’t just pocketed the pacifier in question in front of Tim’s very eyes. Tim shook his hand a bit more demandingly, yet Alfred was unmovable. “I’m afraid that pacifier needs to be cleaned, Master Tim.”
Tim kept eye contact as he slowly brought his coffee ground covered thumb to his mouth, delighting in the way Alfred’s narrowed eyes followed it. Bruce let out a huff of a laugh, firmly pulling Tim’s hand away from his mouth. “Don’t do that, chum, your hands are a bit dirty right now.” Tim huffed, squeezing Teddy close just for the way it made Alfred twitch. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
“No.” Tim denied, pushing very resolutely against Bruce’s cheek to underscore his point. “Put me down, gonna get in trouble.”
“Don’t worry, you won't get in any trouble.” Bruce assured as Alfred ushered them both into the heated car.
Tim gave Bruce a distrustful look, eyes wide with just a dash of hope. “Promise?”
“I promise, Tim.” Bruce soothed, and while he was smiling, his eyes were flinty.
“We will, however, be having a word with your nanny.” Alfred’s accent was practically sharp, it was so thick. Bruce just hummed his agreement. Tim ducked down so that neither man could catch the glee in his eyes. See if Cynthia ever got work in this town again. A short exchange at the front gate speaker got them entrance to the Drake estate proper and found a pale and visibly terrified Cynthia standing on the front steps, wringing her hands.
“Oh my god, is he okay?” She gasped as she took in Tim’s dirty clothes. “Tim, buddy, how did you even get outside?” She reached out for him but Tim shrunk away, hiding his face in Bruce’s shoulder – which conveniently hid the shit eating smirk that bloomed when Bruce all but angled his body away from her, keeping Tim firmly out of her grasp.
“I, uh,” Cynthia fumbled, clearly reading the move for the encroaching doom and professional death that it was, “I thought he was napping. Thanks for bringing him back, I’ll just – uh, he really needs a bath.”
“Indeed he does.” Alfred agreed, eyeing the nanny with open distaste. “If you would, Master Bruce, I will see to the young master’s needs.”
If possible, Cynthia paled even further. “No, that’s necessary. The Drakes don’t really like –”
“Thank you, Alfred.” Bruce interrupted smoothly. Tim found himself summarily passed over and whisked inside and away from the cold. He stared over the butler’s shoulder, resting his chin there as he watched the show.
“Seriously, Mr. Wayne, the Drakes really don’t like –”
“Why don’t we step in and we can have a discussion about ‘what the Drakes really don’t like?’” Bruce offered, voice as mild as milk. “In fact, why don’t we get them on the phone?” He flipped out a (massive, my god what year was it?) flip phone. “You can explain to them why I found their two-year-old digging through the trash.”
It took Alfred a shockingly small amount of time to locate Tim’s room, though the butler paused at the piles of broken porcelain and broom resting next to it, lips pursed. Tim didn’t bother to enlighten the man, let him think what he wanted about what had happened in his nursery. Hopefully, he’d think the worst about Cynthia and her tenure as Tim’s nanny.
Seriously, the bitch threw out his bear. She deserved everything coming her way.
Alfred set him down on the floor of his attached bathroom, looking very serious. “You must stay here, Master Tim. There may still be broken bits around and I don’t want you to cut yourself.” Tim nodded, moving Teddy to rest on his hip like a baby. Alfred eyed the stuffed toy critically. “I believe your friend may also need a bath.”
Tim shifted away until Teddy was out of reach, a total mirror of what Bruce had done with Tim and the nanny earlier, and Tim didn’t catch it until he saw the flash of amusement on Alfred’s face. Embarrassed, Tim itched his nose.
Alfred caught his hand before it could make contact. “I know it may be hard, but try not to touch your face, Master Timothy. Your hands are quite dirty.”
Tim shrugged, tightening his grip on his bear. “Teddy is broken.”
“Ah yes, he is a bit banged up, isn’t he?” Alfred agreed, reaching out and pulling the bear’s arm out as gentle as he would with a human infant. “How about after your bath, I patch him up and then Teddy can go for a spin in the washer? I’m sure he wants to be clean as well.”
Well, shit. Alfred could fix anything. This was a proven fact of the universe, like the fact that the sun rose and set each day. Tim agreed to let the butler take the bear and set it on the sink, but kept on hand shoringly on the bear's foot as he watched Alfred go through his dresser, pulling out clean clothing. In short order, Tim was stripped and in a warm bath – a bubble bath at that. Which was actually pretty impressive, as Tim hadn’t ever recalled having a bubble bath throughout his entire childhood (in either one) and honestly didn’t think they owned any.
The butler washed him with a military precision, yet one so tampered with gentleness that it made Tim’s heart hurt. He missed Alfred. The man had passed when Tim was in his mid-thirties, his heart had just given out. Stress, the doctors had said. He soaked in the gentle touch, leaning back in to the hands scrubbing at his scalp like a cat.
“Poor lad, you’ve had a day, haven’t you?” Tim nodded miserably because he had, especially if you changed out day with the seven months he’d been rotting away in toddler hell. “Well, the good news is the day’s almost done.”
But it wasn’t, Tim thought forlornly. Tim’s birthday may only be four months away, but he was still only turning three. Three! He bet he wasn’t even going to grow that much; Tim had always been depressingly small for his age. God, he just wanted to be able to reach a light switch without having to concoct a three point plan. By the time Alfred had him dried off and in his dinosaur sleeper, Tim was openly sniffling, wiping at his eyes. He made for his snotty nose, but found a soft tissue already pressed there. Man, Alfred was really the best. “Here, my boy, go ahead and give it a big blow.”
He obediently blew. It was a tossup at what mortified him more; the honking that came with it or the involuntary giggle he let out at the sound afterwards. But Alfred just seemed pleased with it all, so Tim pushed past him in embarrassment to pull the bottom drawer of the sink vanity open. He paused, giving the butler hard stare. “Don’t tell, k?”
Alfred’s white brows rose, but he nodded seriously. “You have my word, my boy.”
Tim gave him another hard stare just to be sure, then popped the candy box open and grabbed one of his coveted pacifiers. He let out a sigh of relief as he gave it hard suck, feeling his shoulders sink. Alfred had that half smile on his face like he did when he found something really funny, so fuck him. It was hard business being a toddler, alright? His parents kept trying to take away the few pleasures in life he had. And look, the internet said that you didn’t have to transition from pacifiers until like three or four, which meant that Tim wouldn’t be hopping on the wagon until July. Until then, he was going to bask in the one joy he had in life.
His entire inheritance for a cup of coffee, Tim didn’t even care if it was in a sippy cup.
He curled into the butler’s hold as they made their way back downstairs, stopping only for Alfred to grab the knit blanket off the rocking chair that Tim was positive was a ‘talking point’ and had never been moved before, and practically swaddled him in it. He let out a sigh at the soft touch of the wool. “M sorry.”
“Whatever for my dear?” Alfred asked. Tim shrugged, feeling terrible about his earlier thoughts and reminded himself to be nicer to Alfred, even if it was only in his own head. The kitchen revealed Bruce sitting at one of the bar stools, typing way on his work laptop. Cynthia was nowhere to be found.
The man gave Tim a smile. “You look all clean and shipshape.”
Shipshape. My god, even in his early twenties Bruce had the soul of a seventy-five year old veteran sailor. Good to know. Tim reached out to him and had one moment to observe a flair of fond surprise before Alfred was setting him in Bruce’s lap. Tim burrowed in, pulling his blanket closer as he rested his head on Bruce’s chest, right over his heartbeat. A hand came up to support his back, keeping him from squirming loose and falling. Not that Tim had any urge to do so, but Bruce didn’t know that so it was nice.
“I trust that the nanny has been handled.” Alfred said as he began to peer through the Drake’s refrigerator.
Bruce nodded. “Jim will be sending someone to interview her later. There isn’t anything fresh in there, I checked.”
“So I see.” Alfred said with a scoff as he pulled a bag from the freezer.
Despite the exhaustion closing in on him, Tim found himself perking up at the familiar logo. “Nuggies.”
“Indeed, Master Tim.” The butler squinted as he read the ingredients, before letting out a sigh that somehow managed to sound offended. “Needs must, I suppose.” Bruce’s chest rumbled with a laugh and Tim was so close to the source that it almost sounded like a cat purring. Maybe that was how he managed to pull someone with as much common sense as Selina. Tim petted his chest fondly at the thought. Careful fingers ran through his hair and Tim let himself lull into the touch, eyes closed. “Did you manage to get a hold of Mr. and Mrs. Drake?”
“No.” Bruce said, tone neutral but at the same completely not. Tim cracked his eyes open, catching the stern frown on his face. It was gone as soon as Bruce realized he was watching, giving him a wink as fingers itched at the back of Tim’s head. He went lax again at the touch. “I got a hold of Jack’s secretary though. She’s got a new nanny on the way, from a different agency.”
“I see.”
The scritches didn’t stop and even though Tim was deeply invested in the idea of having chicken nuggets (his parents kept them solely as bribery food, only giving them to Tim when he did really well at parties and events) Tim found himself drifting off, the familiar sounds of Alfred and Bruce bickering at each other in that polite way they did the most beautiful of soundtracks. Honestly, it was better than his old white noise machine.
He woke up some time later on the couch with a dark skinned woman sitting across from him. She introduced herself as Sophie, his new nanny, and went immediately to heat up his nuggets. Reheated nuggets never tasted as good, Tim thought sourly to himself as he glanced around, it was stupid of him to have fallen asleep and he drooped further when he realized that Bruce and Alfred were gone. He slept through their goodbye completely! Who knew when he’d get the chance to see them again?
But Teddy was waiting for him, sitting on the coffee table clean and dry, his shoulder expertly stitched.